Photo: MFonzatti / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
In November 2021, as part of my Politics of Sport coursework for the MSc Sport Management, Politics & International Development at Loughborough University, I wrote a sentence I never expected to revisit quite like this:
“The women in sport in
Afghanistan will become
extinct under the Taliban …”
It was my conclusion just three months after the Taliban’s return to power. The future of female athletes in the country looked completely bleak.
Five years later, I have been thinking about that sentence again.
Not because Afghan women athletes disappeared. Quite the opposite.
They are still here. They are winning medals. They are competing at the Olympics and Paralympics. They are playing cricket in Australia and elsewhere. They are rebuilding football teams. They are training, travelling, and representing Afghanistan on international stages.
But there is a crucial difference.
They are all doing it outside Afghanistan.
And that changes how I look at what I wrote five years ago.
A silver medal in exile
The immediate reason I returned to this subject was Fariba Hashimi.
On 22 September 2026, the 23-year-old Afghan cyclist won silver in the women’s road race at the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, becoming Afghanistan’s first female Asian Games medallist since 2002.
Hashimi’s medal was never simply a sporting result.
She grew up in Faryab province and began cycling alongside her sister, Yulduz. To train, she sometimes dressed as a man to avoid being recognised. The sisters faced stones and bottles. Yulduz was once deliberately hit by a rickshaw and suffered a broken wrist. When the Taliban returned in August 2021, remaining in the country was no longer viable. The sisters fled to Italy and rebuilt their careers there.
Yet there is a contradiction at the heart of her achievement. She won a medal for Afghanistan without being allowed to build her sporting career inside her own country.
“In Afghanistan, this kind of freedom does not exist.”
— Fariba Hashimi, after winning Asian Games silver
She also expressed hope that future generations would be able to come from inside the country and compete without having to flee.
That is what makes the silver medal so significant. Fariba Hashimi did not leave sport. She had to leave Afghanistan to continue it.
What was dismantled
When the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, they did not simply interrupt women’s sport. They dismantled it.
This was not an isolated sporting policy. It was part of a broader political ideology that used ideas of “modesty” and family “honour” to regulate women’s bodies and restrict their presence in public life. Sport was one of the clearest places where that erasure became visible.
Under Taliban rule, women and girls have faced sweeping restrictions on education, employment, freedom of movement and access to public spaces. Organised women’s sport was effectively shut down. Training centres became inaccessible, and women and girls were barred from sporting activities.
Human Rights Watch documented how athletes were forced into hiding. Some destroyed uniforms, sports equipment and medals to erase evidence of their sporting lives.
Members of the women’s volleyball team recounted changing hideouts between provinces and facing threats linked to their participation in sport. Basketball players and other athletes also went into hiding. Boxers trained secretly and moved between discreet locations, while female cyclists hid equipment, burned team kits and erased social-media histories to avoid being identified.
These women had spent years training to represent their country. Now the things that represented their sporting lives could put them at risk. A medal became evidence. A football shirt became dangerous. A photograph needed to disappear.
The women had not stopped being athletes. They had been forced to disappear from public sporting life.
And the loss went beyond cancelled competitions. Sport had given many of them community, identity, independence and a reason to imagine a different future. What disappeared was the sporting world they had spent years building.
The athletes who rebuilt abroad
Manizha Talash fled Afghanistan, crossed borders as an undocumented refugee, and competed at the Paris 2024 Olympics as part of the Refugee Olympic Team. During her breaking performance, she revealed a cape carrying the words “FREE AFGHAN WOMEN.” She was disqualified under Olympic rules on political demonstrations, but the message had already travelled.
Zakia Khudadadi, the Afghan Para taekwondo athlete evacuated from Kabul in the chaos of August 2021, rebuilt her career in France and won bronze at Paris 2024 — the Refugee Paralympic Team’s first-ever medal.
There are many others whose stories receive less attention: Masomah Ali Zada continued cycling and later served as Chef de Mission of the Refugee Olympic Team; Kimia Yousofi kept Afghan women’s athletics on the Olympic map; Nigara Shaheen rebuilt through judo in Canada; Fatima Ahmadi and other taekwondo athletes trained in Australia; Linna, a judoka and coach, restarted in Germany.
Different sports. Different countries. Different journeys. The same underlying reality: their sporting careers did not end when they left Afghanistan. They found ways to continue them.
But individual survival was only part of the story. In two sports in particular, entire pathways began to be rebuilt in exile.
Rebuilding cricket and football in exile
Cricket provides one of the clearest examples of an entire women’s pathway being displaced.
Afghanistan had been developing a women’s programme before 2021. Players trained, competed and held official board contracts. When the Taliban returned, many went into hiding before escaping to Australia, Canada, the UK and elsewhere.
Among them was Nahida Sapan. Speaking to the BBC after settling in Australia, she described the difference: in Afghanistan she had feared for her future; in Australia she could once again have sporting ambitions.
In 2026, the International Cricket Council endorsed the continuation of its Development Pathway Programme for Afghan refugee women cricketers and reconstituted a special taskforce to deliver a roadmap towards official ICC qualification pathways by 2030. Players based in Australia, England and Canada train in local club environments while also coming together for tours and fixtures.
They are not only continuing personal careers. They are rebuilding a national pathway that no longer exists at home.
Football has followed a similar path.
After the Taliban takeover, the national setup scattered. For years, these players faced an extraordinary problem: they were Afghan footballers, but the sporting system inside their own country no longer provided a home or recognition for them.
Then came Afghan Women United. Launched in 2025 with FIFA support, the team provides competitive opportunities for Afghan women footballers living outside the country. It competed in the FIFA Unites Women’s Series and recorded a victory over Libya.
In April 2026, FIFA approved a historic governance change allowing Afghan female players, including members of Afghan Women United, to represent their country in official FIFA competitions under exceptional circumstances.
The players are outside Afghanistan, yet they may once again officially represent it. The national team has, in effect, become a team in exile.
Survival is not the same as continuity
While the stories of athletes rebuilding in exile have rightfully captured global attention, the women who remained inside Afghanistan are much harder to see.
Some could not leave. Some lacked the passports, money or connections required for evacuation. Some had families who could not travel. Others may simply have chosen to stay.
For them, the heartbreak is not only losing the chance to compete internationally. The entire sporting pathway around them has ceased to exist.
A young woman in Kabul or Herat can no longer lace up her boots, join a local club, find a coach, train openly, enter competitions and dream of representing her country.
That is the distinction I do not want to lose.
The survival of Afghan women athletes abroad should not be mistaken for the survival of women’s sport inside Afghanistan. The women who escaped could search for new coaches, new teams and new competitions. Those who stayed were left without the structures that had allowed previous generations to develop.
It is not only the athlete who disappears from the results sheet. It is the girl who never gets to become one.
What I would write now
When I wrote my Politics of Sport coursework in 2021, I concluded that Afghan women in sport could become extinct under the Taliban.
Five years later, I would not write that conclusion in quite the same way.
The women did not disappear. They survived. Fariba Hashimi’s 2026 Asian Games silver is the simplest reminder of that.
But survival came with a profound cost. For many, continuing their sporting lives meant leaving behind the country they had hoped to represent.
Hashimi said it herself after the race: in Afghanistan, this kind of freedom does not exist. She still hopes that one day athletes will be able to come from inside the country, not only from exile.
That is the part of my original conclusion I would change today. I was looking at whether Afghan women could survive within Afghanistan’s domestic sporting system. I did not fully anticipate how many would have to leave that system altogether to continue being athletes.
If I were writing that coursework today, my conclusion would be different:
“Afghan women in sport survived, but outside Afghanistan.”
Sources & Further Reading
Human Rights Watch: Ban on Taliban Olympic Movement
Human Rights Watch: Submission to UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls in Sport
Reuters: Former Afghan Women’s Captain Tells Players to Burn Kits
BBC News: The Afghan Women’s Volleyball Team in Hiding
Taipei Times: Afghan Women Boxers Train in Secret Under Taliban Rule
Canadian Cycling Magazine: The Plight of Women Cyclists After the Fall of Afghanistan
CyclingNews: Afghanistan ‘Right to Ride’ Revolution Stops as Women Face Targeted Violence
Reuters: Dressing as a Man, Competing with the Elite
Olympic Council of Asia: Fariba Hashimi Overcomes Exile to Win Silver Medal
SBS News: Fatima Was on the World Stage Before Fleeing to Australia
Olympics.com: The Refugee Olympic Team at Paris 2024
International Paralympic Committee: Khudadadi Wins First-Ever Medal for Refugee Paralympic Team
The Associated Press: Afghanistan Sprinter Uses Olympic Trip to Shine Light on Women
Reuters: Refugee Breakdancer Stands by Free Afghan Women Message
International Judo Federation: Nigara Shaheen Wants to Teach Judo Values
International Judo Federation: Judo: The Way to Freedom from Kabul
BBC Sport: Afghan Women Cricketers Rebuilding in Exile
International Cricket Council (ICC): Endorses Development Pathway Programme for Afghan Refugee Women
FIFA: Afghan Women United Make History as Pioneering Tournament Kicks Off
AFC / FIFA: Official Matches Landmark Governance Reform
Leave a comment